Millions of children are living in poverty in the UK today despite having a parent or sometimes two in paid employment. The Campaign to End Child Poverty has called on the Government to work across Government departments to look at in-work poverty for families and to ensure that work pays. It also stresses the need to ensure that accessible good quality childcare is available to enable parents to return to work or further education and training.

The Campaign to End Child Poverty is a coalition of over 80 organisations working to eradicate child poverty in the United Kingdom. It is formed from children’s and other charities, social justice groups, faith-groups, trade unions and others concerned about the unacceptably high levels of child poverty in the UK.

The Campaign argues that without significant improvements in the supply of childcare, and improvements in earning and employment potential for parents, the Government’s target to halve child poverty by 2010 and end it by 2020 will not be reached.

Hilary Fisher, Director, End Child Poverty said “3.8 million children are currently living in poverty in the UK today and more than half are in working households.The Government must recognise the scale of in-work poverty and give families on low incomes the childcare choices and employment opportunities they need to balance work and family life. Therefore the Campaign to End Child Poverty is calling on the Government to secure the provision of a sufficient supply of high quality, affordable, accessible childcare and guarantee that work pays through an increase in the minimum wage, in-work benefits and tax credits.”

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